Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory (1971)

Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory (1971)

In director Mel Stuart's fantasy musical and cult classic - it was an unlikely scary children's film that had been adapted from author and screenwriter Roald Dahl's bizarre, best-selling 1964 fairy tale book (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory); its main title character featured Gene Wilder in his most memorable starring role. Ultimately, scripter Dahl disowned the film after significant changes were made in a rewrite by David Seltzer (uncredited). The title of Dahl's book was changed, due to the fact that the Quaker Oats Company (that had bought the rights to Dahl's book) had agreed to create and promote a new candy bar product (the "Wonka Bar") in exchange for financing the picture.

The film was budgeted at almost 3ドル million, but barely made back its cost with gross revenue of 4ドル million. Its sole Academy Award nomination was for Best Music, Scoring Adaptation and Original Song Score, won by Fiddler on the Roof (1971). A number of critics at the time faulted the film for its music. It was mostly shot on location in Munich, Germany and at Bavaria Studios in Geiselgasteig, to match the film's storybook origins. Over time after the film's original theatrical release, it picked up traction with TV showings and releases on home video (VHS, DVD, and laser disc). It was also boosted by its 25th anniversary re-release in 1996, adding 21ドル million to its revenue totals.

The original 100-minute long film was remade by Warner Bros. and director Tim Burton as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), starring Johnny Depp as the famed chocolatier and Freddy Highmore as Charlie.

• in this film's opening, behind the titles, a chocolate liquid was being mixed before it was used in the production of various chocolate products for consumption (the coating for sugar wafers, chocolate chips, chocolate marshmallows (Wonkamallows), and chocolate bars (Wonka Bars)); other base ingredients of the chocolate-making process were shown, including cocoa beans before they were ground and placed in burlap bags
• in the film's first scene set in Bill's Candy Shop run by owner Bill (Aubrey Woods), kids ran from their school after dismissal to gather inside the candy shop to order their favorite candies: Sizzlers, a triple cream cup, a Squelchy Snorter, or Wonka's latest creation - a Scrumdidilyumptious Bar
• the first and most memorable rendition of "The Candy Man" was sung by Bill: "Who can take a sunrise? / Sprinkle it with dew / Cover it in chocolate / And a miracle or two / The Candy Man / The Candy Man can..."
  • [Note: Sammy Davis Jr.'s adaptation of the song also became an all-time best selling hit song in 1971. It was the singer's sole number-one hit.]

• the young star of the film was introduced on the street peering through the candy-store window - a poor, hard-working newspaper-delivery boy named Charlie Bucket (Peter Ostrum in his only film role); while on his paper route, Charlie often passed by the mysterious Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory in town; at the factory's outside gate, a Tinker ominously told him that the locked-up facility was deserted: ("Nobody ever goes in and nobody ever comes out!")

• Charlie returned to his humble home where he lived with his widowed launderer mother Mrs. Bucket (Diana Sowle) who was struggling to care for two sets of bed-ridden grandparents: (on his mother's side) Grandpa Joe (Jack Albertson) and Grandma Josephine (Franziska Liebing), and (on his father's side) Grandpa George (Ernst Ziegler) and Grandma Georgina (Dora Altmann); with his first pay-day money, he had bought the family a loaf of bread for dinner, to accompany their usual meager bowl of cabbage water
• later in the evening, Grandpa Joe explained to Charlie how the gates to the chocolate factory had been locked up years earlier and closed to visitors; but then, production resumed three years later, and it was still secretively producing chocolate and candy, but hidden from the public and behind its factory doors; the title character and factory owner Willy Wonka had apparently become paranoid that his competitive rival candy-maker Arthur Slugworth (Günter Meisner) of Slugworth Chocolates was spying on him and stealing his products' secret recipes; it was unknown and a great mystery to Grandpa Joe about who had been hired as Wonka's most-recent factory workers: ("That is the biggest mystery of them all")
• while in his school classroom, Charlie heard the sudden news from the radio that Wonka's Chocolate Factory was going to reopen, and was initiating a prize contest to promote its Wonka chocolate bars; five Golden Tickets were to be found in only five Wonka bars produced by the factory
• a TV newscaster (Jack Latham) described how the prize for finding a Golden Ticket was a lifetime supply of chocolate, and a free visit and chocolate factory tour with the reclusive Mr. Wonka himself; Charlie dreamed of winning one of the tickets, as others became frenzied with "Wonkamania" - and bought up multiple tickets; Wonka Bars were flying off the shelves - even a delivery truck was spotted at the White House
• news reports began to reveal the first four Golden Ticket winners; they were comprised of a group of spoiled, odd, and unruly children [Note: Each of the first four winners was shown being spoken to by a mysterious, face-scarred and obviously nefarious individual whispering something to them.]
  1. Augustus Gloop (Michael Bollner), a greedy, fat, gluttonous child from Duselheim, Germany; his father claimed: "Eating is his hobby"
  2. Veruca Salt (Julie Dawn Cole), a spoiled, selfish, bossy and immature English girl, whose father Henry Salt (Roy Kinnear) had ordered his peanut-shelling factory female employees for five days to search through 19,000 purchased candy bars per hour (a total of 760,000 bars); the ungrateful girl chastised her father: "You promised, Daddy! You promised I'd have it the very first day!...I won't talk to you ever again! You're a rotten, mean father! You never give me anything I want! And I won't go to school till I have it!"
  3. Violet Beauregarde (Denise Nickerson), an outspoken, record-holding gum chewer from Miles City in Montana, whose father Mr. "Square Deal" Sam Beauregarde (Leonard Stone) was a politician, civic leader, and AutoMart car-dealer
  4. Mike Teevee (Paris Themmen), another American from Marble Falls, Arizona, a boy obsessed with his cap gun (and impatient to get a real Colt. 45), and addicted to TV westerns (he costumed himself in a cowboy outfit) and TV dinners
• the over-eager Charlie also became involved in the mania to try to win one of the prizes; on his birthday, Charlie received two presents: a long knitted red scarf, and a candy bar (although it appeared to be a round, cream-filled pie) - it did not contain one of the Golden Tickets
• during the mania about the Golden Tickets, in a short segment in a computer lab, a computer-scientist technician (Tim Brooke-Taylor) was attempting to use technology to determine where the last three remaining Golden Tickets were located, but after pushing a button, the computer rejected the request with a card reading: "I won't tell. That would be cheating"; bribing the computer with sharing the Grand Prize also failed, followed by another quip and rebuttal from the sassy machine: "What would a computer do with a lifetime supply of chocolate?"; the exasperated technician plugged in his response to the recalcitrant computer: "I am now telling the computer exactly what he can do with a lifetime supply of chocolate"
• after four ticket winners had been announced, Charlie (who had given up on finding a ticket) returned home and found that Joe had bought him a Wonka bar with the tobacco money that Charlie had earlier given him, but it revealed that he wasn't a winner; to assuage his disappointment, Charlie mentioned: "I bet those Golden Tickets make the chocolate taste terrible"
• the mania about Wonka Bars had reached ridiculous heights; in England at an auction to sell the last box of Wonka Bars in the country, it was implied that "Her Majesty" the Queen was one of the bidders in the audience; at the home of a Mrs. Curtis (Gloria Manon), her husband Harold had been kidnapped and held at ransom, and were demanding her case of Wonka Bars; she told the FBI agent (Ed Peck) that she would give it some consideration: ("How long will they give me to think it over?")
• news arrived that a 5th ticket winner was found by a millionaire named Alberto living in the Andes in Paraguay [Note: A picture of Nazi fugitive Martin Bormann was shown in the TV footage - he had allegedly fled to South American from Germany before the Fall of Berlin, conclusively proven false by DNA testing in 1998.] The report of the fifth Golden Ticket winner spread and deflated the hopes of many children, including Charlie
• while walking home from school, young Charlie found money in a storm-drain gutter; although the contest was presumably over, he entered the candy store and bought a Wonka Scrumdidilyumptious and quickly gobbled it down; then as an afterthought, he also purchased one regular Wonka Chocolate candy bar, but kept it for Joe to eat later; meanwhile, he overheard news on the street that the 5th ticket winner was a fraud
• in one of the film's most thrilling moments, Charlie tore open the wrapper for his uneaten second candy bar and discovered the last remaining Golden Ticket (of five) inside

• the overjoyed Charlie returned home through an alleyway, where he was confronted by the mysterious Arthur Slugworth (as had the other children); he was personally offered 10,000 stock certificates (providing "good food and comfort") in exchange for stealing just one of the Wonka Factory's specialized candy products - an Everlasting Gobstopper (a piece of hard-candy that could be sucked but never shrank) - to reveal its "secret formula"
• once he sped home after leaving Slugworth, Charlie showed the ticket to his disbelieving grandparents; they realized that he had actually won after Grandpa Joe read the instructions on the Golden Ticket; Charlie was told to chose one chaperone to accompany him for a tour of the chocolate factory the following day - on October 1st, he chose his reinvigorated grandfather who for the first time in 20 years left his bed; the two celebrated with a triumphant and spritely song/dance: "I've Got a Golden Ticket"
• along with all of the ticket winners (with their chaperones), the town (and a band) turned out to view the next day's opening of the Chocolate Factory at 10:00 AM [Note: The exterior of the defunct Munich Gas Works was used for the scene.] The legendary but reclusive candy man and chocolate maker Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder in a definitive role) made his introductory appearance and entrance; he exited his gated chocolate factory, limping and heavily relying on his cane, as if he were a sullen and decrepit old man; as he approached the outer gate walking on a ceremonial red carpet, he stopped unsteadily, teetered and then suddenly collapsed, eliciting a gasp from the gathered crowd; the admirers appeared to be disappointed by the appearance of the frail, elderly gentleman - was this really Willy Wonka?

• but then Willy fell forward and performed a neat, perfectly-executed somersault with a spry flair, and jumped up onto his feet - eliciting the crowd's applause and cheers; he was foreshadowing his own mischievous, cunning, enigmatic, slightly wicked and secretive nature; he then greeted everyone with a broad smile:
  • "Welcome my friends. Welcome to my chocolate factory"
• the five young lucky winners of Golden Tickets (and their parents) were at the event, with their designated adult chaperone (either their mother or father, or in Charlie's case, his grandfather); they were each personally greeted by Wonka at his open gate; once inside the factory, he mistakenly told everyone: "Hurry please, we have so much time and so little to see"; he warned: "Little surprises around every corner but nothing dangerous"; the children were required to sign a mostly illegibile contract (with large print at the top, and miniature, blurry print at the bottom)

• afterwards, they entered a trick or fun-house "Dead End" hallway and then into a skewed perspective room; Wonka spoke about entering into his "nerve center":
  • "Inside this room, all of my dreams become realities. And some of my realities become dreams. And almost everything you will see is eatible. Edible."
• Wonka played a tune from Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro (misidentified by Mrs. Teevee (Nora Denney) as from Rachmaninoff) on a mini-keyboard as the password for entering into his dazzling main Chocolate Room; as they entered a small door in the hallway, it became a larger door on the inside; Willy told everyone: "Hold your breath. Make a wish. Count to three," as he showed off all of his factory's edible sweets, chocolates, candies, large gummy bears, umbrella-shaped confectionary mushrooms, giant lollipops and candycanes, giant gumballs filled with chocolate, large strings of taffy, edible tea-cup flowers, and a brown "Chocolate River" with a waterfall (to mix his liquid chocolate), as he sang "Pure Imagination"
  • "Come with me and you'll be In a world of Pure Imagination Take a look and you'll see Into your imagination. We'll begin with a spin Trav'ling in the world of my creation What we'll see will defy Explanation. If you want to view paradise Simply look around and view it Anything you want to, do it Want to change the world, there's nothing to it..."
• the interior of Wonka's fanciful factory was revealed to be populated by "funny-looking," orange-skinned, green-haired, dwarfish Oompa-Loompas workers; Wonka admitted that he had transported the entire population of Oompa Loompas to his factory from Loompaland - a desolate jungle country with wild beasts; Veruca whined to her father and blurted out that she wanted one of the Oompas: ("I want you to get me an Oompa Loompa right away!")
• he strictly warned that they must not contaminate the chocolate in the river; the disobedient and always-hungry Augustus was found drinkiing from the Chocolate River; he accidentally fell in, and unable to swim, he was sucked up into a giant vertical transparent pipe-tube; his girth blocked the tube, causing pressure to build and propel him into the Fudge Room; as Augustus' chaperone-mother Mrs. Gloop (Ursula Reit) cried out: "Don't just stand there, do something!," one of the Oompa-Loompas was instructed to take the distraught Mrs. Gloop away to the Fudge Room to deal with her son's fate
• as Willy's Oompa Loompa workers labored nearby, they sang a version of their "Oompa Loompa" Song:
  • "Oompa Loompa Doompa De Do, I've got a perfect puzzle for you, Oompa Loompa Doompa De De, If you are wise, you'll listen to me What do you get when you guzzle down sweets? Eating as much as an elephant eats What are you at? Getting terribly fat What do you think will come of that? I don't like the look of it..."
• in the film's most-unlikely scary scene for a family-friendly film, the tormenting, purple-clad Willy then offered the next part of the tour -- a wondrous but strange factory paddle-boat ride on his Wonkatania (powered by two Oompa Loompas crew members turning the paddle wheel) for the remaining lucky, mostly bratty children and their parents; he announced: "I take good care of my guests... Everybody aboard? You're going to love this. Just love it"
• the tour was a scary journey down the Chocolate River as the tormenting, purple-clad Willy sat in the front of the boat; entering a tunnel, Mr. Beauregard was skeptical and frightened and shouted out: "I don't know, but I don't like the looks of that tunnel up there. Hey, Wonka, I want off!", but he was ignored; Wonka's two Oompa Loompas rowers proceeded to go faster, as young Veruca Salt complained: "I don't like this ride, Daddy"; Violet Beauregard also asked: "What is this, a freak-out?"

• during the ride, hallucinatory, colorful, hellish and surreal images were back-projected behind them, including a kaleidoscope of these seven unsettling, flashed items:
  • a flying insect (cockroach) with two antenna
  • a slimy millipede crawling over the mouth of a person (shown in a close-up)
  • an extreme close-up of an eye
  • a chicken being beheaded with an axe
  • a picture of Arthur Slugworth, Wonka's bespectacled competitor
  • a bug being snapped up into the mouth of a lizard (chameleon)
  • a scorpion's mouth (in close-up)
• after six of the scary images, Wonka performed the strange and eerie musical number "Wondrous Boat Ride" for them - a darkly morbid, forboding song:
  • (singing) "THERE'S NO EARTHLY WAY OF KNOWING, WHICH DIRECTION WE ARE GOING, THERE'S NO KNOWING WHERE WE'RE ROWING, OR WHICH WAY THE RIVER'S FLOWING, IS IT RAINING, IS IT SNOWING, IS A HURRICANE A-BLOWING?
    (speaking) Bleh! Not a speck of light is showing So the danger must be growing
    Are the fires of hell a glowing? Is the grisly reaper mowing? Yes! The danger must be growing For the rowers keep on rowing And they're certainly not showing Any signs that they are slowing!"
• suddenly, after being shouted at by Mr. Salt to end the trip, Willy ordered the boat to stop - and announced: "We're there!...Here. A small step for mankind, but a giant step for us. All ashore!"
• they arrived in front of their destination, the Inventing Room, where his newest confections were being created by bizarre machines attended by his workers; Wonka specifically instructed everyone:
  • "Now, remember: No messing about, no touching, no tasting, no telling...all of my most secret inventions are cooking and simmering in here. Old Slugworth would give his false teeth to get inside for just five minutes, so don't touch a thing!"
• as he mixed a concocted drink for himself, Wonka gave the group insight into his most creative candy inventions by describing his trademark mysterious formula (that totaled 105%):
  • "Invention, my dear friends, is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation and 2% butterscotch ripple"
• a piece of exploding candy (designed for one's enemies) eaten by Mike TeeVee sent him crashing backwards; Wonka also revealed that one of his mixtures for butterscotch was alcoholic: ("Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker"); he then showed off his latest and most secretive Everlasting Gobstopper machine; it made a candy product that could be sucked forever: ("You can suck 'em and suck 'em and suck 'em, and they'll never get any smaller"); he offered a piece to every child - but only if they pledged to keep the product a secret: ("I can only give them to you if you solemnly swear to keep them for yourselves and never show them to another living soul as long as you all shall live") - this was the product that Slugworth was most envious of and wished to steal
• Wonka showed off his next "mechanical wonder" that was designed to develop a "fabulous, sensational" but only experimental gum-chewing product that tasted like a three-course meal; against orders, Violet Beauregarde greedily grabbed a piece of the gum to chew, and began to describe the taste of the first two courses (soup and roast beef); but then during the dessert phase (blueberry pie with cream), she turned blue, inflated with juice, and became a giant blueberry; Wonka admitted that the gum had been troublesome and not yet totally perfected; he ordered a group of his Oompa-Loompa workers to roll her away to the Juicing Room, to be squeezed before she exploded
• Willy's Oompa Loompa workers circled around Violet and sang their scolding, moralistic song at her for gum-chewing disobedience: "Oompa-Loompa-Doompa-De-Do" before rolling her away:
  • "Oompa Loompa Doompa De Do/Dee / I've got another puzzle for you - If you are wise, you will listen to me / Gum chewing's fine When it's once in a while / It stops you from smoking and brightens your smile / But it's repulsive revolting and wrong, Chewing and chewing all day long..."
• it was soon revealed that the tour was designed to test and tempt the "naughty" and misbehaving children as a test of their character; they suffered fateful accidents and/or punishments as they disobeyed and were expelled; the fate of each child that was eliminated matched their weakness (gluttony - drinking too much chocolate, obsessive gum-chewing, selfish and demanding behavior, and obsessive TV watching)
• as the tour continued, the group was led into a Wallpaper Room with lickable fruit on its walls; in the next area, the Fizzy Lifting Room, Grandpa Joe and Charlie illicitly sampled Fizzy Lifting drinks that caused gas and powerfully floated them upwards toward a chimney's razor-sharp exhaust fan that threatened to chop them up into pieces (an allusion to the Icarus myth); by burping, they were able to cleverly descend safely down to the ground, and then rejoined the tour

• in the Geese Room, Wonka showed off giant, egg-laying geese that were producing golden chocolate eggs for the next Easter: ("They're quadruple size geese which produce octuple size eggs"); the misbehaving Veruca demanded that her father Mr. Salt purchase a golden goose for her and sang: "I Want It Now!", but she was denied; the spoiled brat wouldn't accept "no" and jumped up onto the "Egg-Dicator" - a device that was sifting good eggs from bad eggs; Veruca (and then her father who joined her) were both deposited down a garbage chute to a furnace after being judged as defective: (Wonka glibly noted: "She was a bad egg" and "There's gonna be a lot of garbage today"); Wonka told Charlie that the two had a 50/50 chance of surviving: ("I think that furnace is only lit every other day, so they have a good sporting chance, haven't they?"); the Oompa Loompas sang another chorus about the fate of the Salts
• next, Wonka displayed his strange "Wonkamobile" in another room, and offered his guest-winners a ride after filling it with carbonated beverages and explaining the fuel contents to Grandpa Joe: ("Oh ginger ale, ginger pop, ginger beer, beer bubbles, bubbleade, bubblecola, double cola, double-bubble-burple-cola, and all the crazy carbonated stuff that tickles your nose. Few people realize what tremendous power there is in one of those things"); during the ride, the occupants of the Wonkamobile were sprayed with foamy and bubbly suds from the vehicle's internal engine; at the end of the ride, Wonka explained what had happened to them - they had traveled through a "Hsawaknow...that's Wonkawash spelled backwards"

• after donning protective white coats and goggles, they entered into the next area during the tour, the Wonkavision Room, where Wonka showed off his latest and newest transporter invention known as "Wonkavision" - to send a Wonka chocolate bar via TV; the Ooompa-Loompas demonstrated how to transmit the giant chocolate bar that was resized to normal size as it reached its destination on a TV screen across the room; although warned about the dangers of the machine, Mike attempted to misuse it by sending himself in the machine, and ended up shrunken and miniaturized into doll-size within the TV screen; Grandpa Joe quipped: "Our little group is getting smaller by the minute" as Mike bragged: "I'm the first person in the world to be sent by television"; Mike's mother Mrs. Teevee deposited her unharmed but down-sized son into her purse before the Oompa-Loompas dragged her limp and fainted body away to the special Taffy-Pulling Room to stretch him out to normal size

• except for Charlie (and his Grandpa Joe), all of the other children (and their chaperones) had been eliminated; outside his office, Wonka reassured Charlie about the fate of the others: "When they leave here, they'll be completely restored to their normal, terrible old selves. But maybe they'll be a little bit wiser for the wear"
• after ushering them out of the factory, Wonka entered his office, claiming he was busy and had a lot of work to do; Grandpa Joe and Charlie refused to leave and entered the office to get answers; to their surprise, everything in the office was cut in half; Wonka became enraged when they asked about the contract's promise of a lifetime's supply of chocolate prize; he harshly dismissed them and angrily told them that their contest contract was voided and Charlie had been disqualified, because they had broken the rules by their careless actions and violation of the fine print - by taking the Fizzy Lifting Drinks; Grandpa Joe threatened to consider divulging the Gobstopper candy sample-recipe to Wonka's competitor Slugworth to get even:
  • Wonka: "Wrong, sir! Wrong! Under section 37-B of the contract signed by him, it states quite clearly that all offers shall become null and void if - and you can read it for yourself in this photostatic copy - 'I, the undersigned, shall forfeit all rights, privileges, and licenses herein and herein contained', et cetera, et cetera...'Fax mentis incendium gloria cultum', et cetera, et cetera...'Memo bis punitor delicatum!'' It's all there! Black and white! Clear as crystal! You stole Fizzy-Lifting drinks! You bumped into the ceiling which now has to be washed and sterilized. So you get NOTHING! You lose! Good day, sir!
  • Grandpa Joe: "You're a crook! You're a cheat and a swindler, that's what you are. How can you do a thing like this?! Build up a little boy's hopes and then smash all his dreams to pieces? You're an inhuman monster!"
  • Wonka: "Sir, I said, 'Good day!'"
• as Grandpa Joe prepared to leave, Charlie decided to turn back and speak humbly to Wonka; he admitted that he shouldn't have sampled the Fizzy Drink; he also adamantly vowed to not give the Gobstopper to Slugworth (as Grandpa Joe threatened), and returned the sample candy to Wonka's desk; he would be the only child to pass Wonka's tests and win the jackpot
• in the film's surprise twist, Slugworth was revealed to be Mr. Wilkinson, a Wonka employee who was being used to test Charlie's honesty; Wonka reversed his decision and praised Charlie: ("So shines a good deed in a weary world" - a quote from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice), he called Charlie: "My boy"; Wonka told him: "You won! You did it! You did it!" - he was commended for his honesty
• Wonka led them to another of his inventions - a glass encased, multi-directional elevator known as a "Great Glass Wonka-Vator"; Charlie pressed the elevator's red button that propelled them crashing through the factory's glass ceiling-roof, and into the sky above the town to view the factory from above [Note: The town viewed during their elevator flight was Nordlingen, Germany.]
• Charlie admired how the factory was the "most wonderful place in the whole world"; he was awarded the ultimate "grand and glorious jackpot" -- the chocolate factory and the entire business; the whole idea of his Golden Ticket prize-contest had been to locate an honest and trustworthy young, candy-loving heir with integrity who could take over, own and manage the factory, continue Wonka's work, and also care for the Oompa Loompas:
  • "I can't go on forever, and I don't really want to try. So who can I trust to run the factory when I leave and take care of the Oompa Loompas for me? Not a grown up. A grown up would want to do everything his own way, not mine. So that's why I decided a long time ago that I had to find a child. A very honest, loving child, to whom I could tell all my most precious candy making secrets...So the factory is yours, Charlie"
• Charlie was told that he could move into the factory immediately - and bring his whole entire family!; as they flew off into the blue sky, in the film's crowd-pleasing finale just before the scrolling end credits, Willy Wonka gave his new heir some cautionary (but subverted) advice:
  • "But Charlie, don't forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he always wanted...He lived happily ever after!"